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The buzz has become impossible to escape. Business associations speak of “renewal”, while expensive restaurants celebrate “revitalization” and local politicians promote “redevelopment” as the city gives large grants to Toronto entrepreneurs to set up shop in town. This is all accompanied by a media blitz presenting Hamilton as a land of opportunity for the rich. With every passing day the meaning of these words becomes painfully obvious – in practice they really just mean increased misery, hardship, and displacement. Real estate agents, property management firms, investors, and business owners amongst others, reap huge profits as many of us who have called Hamilton home struggle to get by in the changing city. This is a fundamental reality of capitalism and is not surprising. What is surprising, is that those who celebrate and profit off gentrification continue to do so openly without regularly feeling the anger of those who their narrow self-interest harms.

This summer, we took a few small actions to remind the profiteers and boosters of gentrification that their presence in our neighbourhoods is unwelcome. Between June and August 2017, we carried out a series of simple attacks against businesses and entities that seek that seek to attract rich people and investors, encouraging the kinds of rapid rent increases that have already displaced thousands of people.

About 250 people turned out for a rally and march in Hamilton, Ontario called by some informal local anarchists in solidarity with the anti-fascists who confronted the far-right in Charlottesville. We were especially thinking of Heather Heyer, who was killed when a nazi drove his car into a demonstration, as well as of all those who were injured.

The rally gathered in front of Jackson Square, where a large red and black banner read “Antifascist Here and Everywhere! Solidarity with Charlottesville”. Over a thousand leaflets were distributed, inviting people to a fundraiser dinner and to make the link the with context in Canada:

“As the far-right tide continues to rise south of the border, reactionaries in Canada are copying their practices and rhetoric as a way of maintaining and deepening the racist, patriarchal, and colonial social structures that dominate North America. While the ideas of the far right have become more normalized, the killing of this anti-fascist shows us what the consequences of these ideas are.”

“We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.” -Mikhail Bakunin

This week Hamilton had the unfortunate distinction of being the only city on Eva Bartlett’s Canadian tour to host not one, but two presentations by the self-described independent journalist. In the days since, some of us have been asked by people in the Hamilton activist scene our thoughts on the events and, given that anarchists were publicly named as opponents of the event, “authoritarian” ones at that (the irony is not lost on us), we would like to clarify some thoughts.

For weeks, your numbers and our hearts have swelled in unison.
The world is watching as you spark the revolution.
We all wish that we could join you but realize we have ways to help from here.
We have work to do right here.
And so we offer up a small act of resistance. Of defiance.
A rejection of their narrative.

Enbridge is funding the Dakota Access pipeline, as well as Line 9 here.
As of one week ago, a merger made them the largest energy delivery company on Turtle Island.

Yesterday, a group of scumbags affiliated with local real estate companies organized a tour of Hamilton for a group of investors, with the goal of drawing in capital from outside the city. This project is called Try Hamilton and they describe their goals as a chance for entrepreneurs and developers to envision ‘city-changing’ possibilities. Shamelessly pro-gentrification, they talk about our neighbourhoods as blank slates, gloat about the money to be made if an area can be successfully ‘converted’ to a different kind of resident. Of course, for most of us, their financial wet dreams appear in our lives as violence, hunger, or eviction – and so of course we have to fight back against them.

When the group of investors emerged from the Ti-Cats stadium, fresh off the inspiring words of the city’s mayor, and tried to board buses, they were met by a crowd of forty angry people who encouraged them to, rather than try Hamilton, try fucking themselves. With signs reading, “Gentrification is disgusting, you rich fucks are disgusting”, “who gets off on evicting families?” and “Fuck you for trying”, we met them with a wall of rage that showed them what the class war their investments drive can mean.

New years in Southern Ontario wouldn't be complete without a festive expression of our rage against prisons and the world which requires them. For the seventh year running, we brought the party to several local institutions of control and isolation, in order to show those trapped inside for the holidays that they aren't alone.

"We love to party and celebrate on New Year’s and this tradition has allowed us to do so in a spirit of antagonism and solidarity. We can have fun in a way that actually inspires us and that brings some joy to people who are locked up. Connecting through the walls with prisoners is a direct action against the alienation and separation that prison creates and it transforms the urban space, bringing in to focus the prisons that dot the landscape and making vivid the coercive violence of the state that controls our lives. Prison impacts us every day, whether or not we’re locked up, and the New Year’s Noise Demos make this conflict tangible."

The past month in Hamilton saw two communique-worthy events without communiques. We celebrated March 15th day of action against brutality in the middle of the Juno awards ceremony and our buddy who was getting railroaded into a jail sentence got off after a crowd of supporters pressured the court.